Millennials and tattoos go together like oil and vinegar. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center claims that nearly four-in-ten millennials get themselves tattooed as a means of self-expression. In addition to this, about half of these people have between 2 to 5 tattoos while 18 percent were shown to have 6 or more.1 http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/02/24/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change/
But unknown to most of us, tattoos on your skin are really much more than being just a decorative statement. They can interfere with your natural sweating process and if you’re someone who works out regularly, this can cause some serious health repercussions.
Tattooed Skin Sweats Less, Says Research
A study conducted at Alma College examined changes in the sweating function in tattooed parts of the human body. For this research, 10 young men with tattoos on one side of their upper body but not on the other were recruited. Chemical patches containing pilocarpine nitrate, a substance that induces sweating, were used on both the tattooed skin and non-tattooed skin – this was done to trigger the sweating process of this skin. It was found that the tattooed parts of the body produced half the sweat as compared to that by the parts that hadn’t been inked. Not only that, but the sodium content in the sweat produced by tattooed skin was found to be much higher (meaning saltier) as compared to that of the sweat produced by areas of the skin that was non-tattooed.2
What’s The Explanation Behind This Finding?
Researchers explain that when a tattoo artist starts injecting ink into the skin, it gets deposited in the dermal layer which is pretty much the same approximate depth as that of where our sweat glands are located. To make a tattoo, the artist has to puncture the skin with ink dye-filled needles for at least a minimum of 3000 times. And that’s a lot of ink and colored dye collecting in your skin! So it’s possible that this causes the blockage of many of the sweat glands in that area, thereby making them secrete less sweat.
Also, tattooed skin goes through permanent changes. As with all other foreign substances that manage to enter your system, your body considers these inks as a threat. Plus, each time the needle punctures your skin, there are many cells that are suffering damage. Your body takes note of this too, and then sends an alarm to the immunity system to release an army of cells to fight this ‘foreign invader’. These army cells migrate to the areas of the skin affected by all that inking and piercing. While some of these cells transport small amounts of this ink to the lymph nodes where it is dumped as waste to be removed from the body, another group of cells merge with the remaining deposits of ink and become permanent residents of the skin in that area.
Yet another group of cells triggers inflammation to speed up the process of skin repair. It is suggested that these inflammatory cells may alter the chemical environment within that particular area of the skin, thus slowing down the sweat glands’ response rate and changing the amount of sodium in whatever little sweat that is produced.
As far as being saltier in nature is concerned, there’s an explanation for that too. When the sweat glands secrete sweat, our skin will work hard to reabsorb sodium and other electrolytes from the perspiration before it evaporates. It is suggested that maybe tattoos partially block the reabsorption of this sodium, causing the perspired sweat to retain its sodium content.
What This Finding Means For People Who Workout
No matter how much it makes up wrinkle our noses, sweating is good for you. When your body gets overheated, sweating comes to the rescue to help cool you off, while simultaneously flushing out toxins from your system through the pores. The more fitness oriented you are, the more your body will push itself, and the more urgent becomes the need to expel all that extra body heat.
We all know that athletes, sports players, and even militants are heavily into working out…and tattoos. And they don’t usually stick to one small tattoo either; in fact, you’ll find most of them showing off large swathes of inked skin. This is bound to get in the way of those prized sweat streams.
There is a maximum sweat rate that can be obtained by the human body. Marathon runners, football players, or militants already sweat very often at their absolute maximum, especially if the weather is hot. If the body has already reached its maximum sweat rate and now it loses the ability to sweat from certain portions of the skin, it will start experiencing a lower maximum all of a sudden. There is an increased risk of this happening if you have large portions of your body injected with tattoo ink.
Not only does this affect overall health, but can also interfere with performance levels. People who do heavy work out regularly are already exercising at their maximal capacity which involves more sweating. If their ability to produce sweat is reduced, they will no longer be able to achieve the same maximum as they used to before.
Heat illness can cause widespread muscle death, brain and kidney injury. If elite athletes and sports stars succumb to heat illness, the consequences are sure to ruin not just their health, but also their career.
Note: Although the study is first of its kind to look into the sweating function of tattooed skin, it is still a small study and comes with some limitations. Firstly, the study involved chemically induced sweat, so we don’t know if the same results would be observed in sweating caused by exercising or doing heavy chores. Secondly, the study only involves men, and it remains to be seen if the same results are observed in women as well. We also don’t know if the same findings would hold true for tattooed skin in the elderly. Therefore, more conclusive evidence is still needed before we can be definitely sure.
It also remains to be seen if tattooed people are more susceptible to heat illnesses, and if one can have compensatory sweating by non-tattooed areas of the skin to account for the lower sweat production by tattooed skin.
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